Danse Macabre
by musicahumana
Summary: A bloody abduction in the night threatens McGee's and Abby's lives. Team Fic. McAbby. Tiva? Post Judgment Day.
1. Chapter 1: Après un Rêve

Hi, all! Well, this starts some time _after_ the events of Judgment Day. I hope you enjoy!

(And—I own nothing in this story except the plot.)

* * *

Ah, god, his head hurt, and damn but there was an awful, unholy ringing in his ears. He moved his arm to reach his head and bumped something heavy and cold and smooth, sending it from the wooden workbench to the floor with a splintering crunch.

"Damn it!"

The ringing was his phone, and its vibrator was sending it dancing across the table. He rubbed his face roughly as the smell of spilt bourbon lifted from the concrete. What time was it? He blinked and checked his watch.

He flipped open the phone.

"Gibbs."

"_Boss?" _The voice was a harsh whisper.

"Who?..." He took the phone away from his ear for a moment to check the caller ID. "McGee? It's four in the morning. Why the hell are..."

"_Boss, someone's at my place, and I don't think they..."_

"Someone's breaking in?"

"_Yeah."_ A dog's growl cut through and a loud din of angry barks continued in the background. _"They must've bypassed my security because Jethro's going nuts and I haven't heard a peep from the control system."_

Gibbs stood and grabbed his keys, already three steps up the basement stairs before McGee finished. "Did you call the police?"

"_Uh, no." _There was a bit of scuffling, a smattering of barks, and he heard a gun cock. _"These guys must really know what they're doing if they were able to hack the circuitry without setting it off. The cops would take too long at this point."_

He had his car door open and the keys in the ignition. "Are you still over on Brighton?" His tires squealed. He heard another voice. "Shit, McGee. Who's there with you?"

McGee whispered instructions away from the phone for a moment before Gibbs heard the answer. _"Abby, Boss. Abby's here, too."_

Shit. He punched the palm of his hand into the steering wheel, careening to his right to catch a shortcut to McGee's side of town. Shit. "Okay. I'm on my way. You get her a gun and you get her hidden, and then you call the cops. I'll make some calls from my end."

"_Already on it, Boss."_

"And McGee?"

"_Yeah, Gibbs?"_

He couldn't think of anything to say that McGee wouldn't already know, so he just hung up.

* * *

"_Dinozzo."_

"Gibbs, do you know what time it is?"

"_Get up and get your team over to McGee's_. Now."

"It's four in the morning!...ish."

"_He's got an intruder. Abby's there."_

"Got it. On my way."

* * *

Abby gripped the sword hilt tightly, crouched and rocking back and forth on her feet behind the shower curtain. The first gunshot nearly made her squeal, but the second and third, coupled with the angry and agonizing screams coming from the adjacent bedroom made her wish once more that McGee had stashed another gun in the bedroom. But he was right. Both he and Jethro were trained for this, had been in these situations before, and a sword against a gun—let alone multiple guns—was no fair fight.

Jethro's angry snarls stopped with a gunshot and an abrupt whine and she squeezed her eyes shut in the darkened bathroom, as if doing so could shut out the mad shouting and sounds of death.

She knew what Tim wanted her to do. They hadn't known how many had entered the house, but she knew that Timmy hadn't changed his plan when the trespassers charged into the bedroom. He didn't want them to know she was there, and that meant he wanted her to stay hidden while they took shot after bloodthirsty, window-rattling shot at him. Judging from the thumps and yells coming through the wall, there had to be at least five men in the room, and he was facing them basically alone, hoping that Jethro could last long enough to confuse them and let him get some shots off. Well, he wasn't going to get what he wanted. She couldn't let him die while she cowered next to his _Head and Shoulders_.

Another shot cracked and she heard a horrifying scream through the door. It was McGee.

She pursed her lips and leapt from the bathtub, fumbling in the dark for the door before she could lose her nerve. Throwing it open and snarling, holding the sword in front of her as an impotent sort of shield, she lunged at the nearest intruder. The edge of the weapon wasn't sharp, but that made it all the more destructive as she ripped it down across his face. She'd lifted it again and jammed it with a wet crunch above the man's left hip when a thick arm wrapped around her neck and pulled her backwards and towards the bed, yanking the sword away.

She yelled and writhed as best she could, but despite the numerous times she almost wriggled free, the large man on top of her managed to pin her face down in the sheets.

McGee was wrestling two men, half yelling and half mumbling something that sounded like her name; it took her several seconds to realize that she was yelling his back. She went still, however, when the hot muzzle of a Beretta was pressed against the back of her head. She closed her eyes and swallowed down sick fear. This was all happening too fast.

"No, stop!" she heard McGee press, his words slurred together in pain. "Don't hurt her."

"Why should he not?" one of the men holding him back growled. He had a thick, snappy accent, made slightly breathy by the fight's exertion. "She skewered Marcus."

McGee paused and took a labored breath. "You...you shot...her dog."

Abby almost laughed at the lame defense, but it came out as a sob. They'd shot Jethro _and_ Timmy.

The man on top of her did laugh. He pulled her up by the dog collar she'd left around her neck, causing it to tighten and constrict both blood and air. She could see the horror in McGee's unfocused eyes as she was forced to stand, the dark, mottled blood that swirled across his chest and down his right arm. She wanted to cry, wanted to run each of these black-clothed villains through with her christened sword, wanted to rush across the room and make sure that Tim was okay, but all she could do was reach up towards her neck and try to pull the collar down so she could breath.

"You like this bitch, McGee?" The man shook her a bit, the cold malevolence in his gravely voice finally bringing tears to her eyes. "This is Ms. Sciuto, no?" He addressed the only other men standing, the two who were now, instead of holding McGee back, holding him up. "We'll take her with us, too."

* * *

Okay, so if you're interested in reading more of this story, _you gotta let me know!_ Reviews help me write...and they make me very happy.

Here's a point I feel I should make: _If you're in a dangerous situation, always call the cops first. Period._ For the purposes of this story, I had McGee do something else. But if there had been a cop car even a few blocks away, they would have gotten to his place more quickly. So, yeah. If you're ever in a similar situation (and I really hope you never are) do the right thing that Probie didn't do and dial 911.

One last note: I will not be neglecting other members of the cast! (You know who I mean...)

Cheers, y'all!

_mh_


	2. Chapter 2: Black Angels

"_Can I help you with something, Agent Gibbs?" _

_Director Vance's voice was flat and defensive. The rest of Gibbs's team had filed out of the office quietly, clearly shocked, without protest._

"_What do you think you're doing, Leon? "_

_The director raised an eyebrow. "I thought that was very clear. Do you have an issue you would like to discuss?"_

_Gibbs slapped the still-anonymous files he'd been handed onto the desk. "Oh, you bet I do."_

_There was silence for a moment, both men eyeing each other critically, Gibbs clearly expecting an answer from Vance, and Vance stubbornly holding out for a question. _

_Finally, when the staring contest was obviously getting both of them nowhere, the director gave in. "So." He sat, spreading his hands in front of him, threading a yellow pencil through a few of his fingers. "What, exactly, do you find exceptionable?"_

"_You're demoting the best agents you've got. You could be ruining their careers."_

_Vance remained silent, holding the pencil between two fingers and bouncing the eraser thoughtfully on the maple desk._

"_But you know that. And you're doing it anyway." Gibbs raised his voice. "Don't go reprimanding them for something that was my fault."_

"_You think this is about your mistakes? Only yours?" Vance sat up straighter and dropped the pencil. "I've done everything you could have hoped for in this situation, Gibbs. I cleaned up your messes and I let Franks off the hook. But damn if I'm going to let my agents—_my agents_, Gibbs—get away with going behind my back and lying to me."_

"_They were following orders."_

"_And that makes it okay? I may not be you, and I certainly may not be Jenny, but I am their _boss_. The _United States Government_ is their boss. And you and your team have a track record of shirking authority whenever it's convenient. Frankly, I think it's time that they take responsibility for their shortsighted loyalty to leaders who clearly abuse their power."_

_Gibbs flushed angrily, and his voice caught a deadly growl at the back of his throat. "You think I abuse my _power_? That _Jenny_ abused her power?"_

"_Yes, yes, I do. And I tell you what, it's obviously had catastrophic consequences, consequences that _I _have had to hide from the United States Government. I don't appreciate it Gibbs. I don't appreciate having to lie to my superiors to keep you out of trouble, and it ends now. I am dissolving your team and giving you, giving all of you, this one final chance to prove to me that you are trustworthy."_

* * *

McGee's house was dark when Gibbs pulled up, but the rest of the street was not. Lamps had been lit in nearly every second-story window, and troubled eyes peered skittishly from behind the safety of expensive curtains. Gibbs felt the pit of his anxious stomach rise as he silently sidestepped, gun loaded and cocked in front of him, around the house's perimeter. Whatever was going to happen, had already happened. Christ, where was Dinozzo?

The back door was unlocked and sitting a hair's-breadth ajar, so he gently pushed it open with his shoulder. Immediately the stench of gun powder and fresh blood choked his nostrils. He was too late. He pulled out his cell and dialed Tony.

"_I'm almost there, Gibbs."_

"Something definitely went down, Dinozzo..._almost_ isn't good enough."

"_Agent Richards should be there before I am. And if you called him, probably Palmer, too."_

"Yeah, I think I heard one of them just pull up."

He shut the phone and shuffled back around the side of the house to wave over...it looked like it was Palmer and Cox, the latter still in her pajama pants and an old _Styx_ t-shirt. They took his cue and readied their guns before they reached him.

"What's going on, Boss?" Palmer whispered, still uncomfortable with a loaded weapon but much better at controlling his obvious nervous nature than he had been a year ago. Anaar merely eyed her surroundings expertly while at the same time throwing a questioning glance his way. It was bitterly reassuring to know that the director had saddled Tony with at least one experienced team member. Jimmy, on the other hand, was _his_.

Gibbs glanced down the street where two more sets of headlights were turning their direction. Insistent emergency sirens grew less distant at a surprisingly fast speed. "Someone's shot up McGee's place. Possibly two down inside. Palmer, you stay here and watch the front, let Dinozzo and the rest know we've gone inside, and make sure the PD are aware that we're NCIS. Cox, you're with me."

The next few minutes were an exercise in functioning professionally while sloughing through a nightmare. Gibbs and Cox moved through the dark building like troubled ghosts, unwilling and unable to disturb the carnage. Though the first floor of the house was left relatively untouched, save for a few brownish smears on the doorstops, the loft and second floor were a mess of blood and destruction. Expensive art frames had been sent crashing to the recently refinished hallway floor, and the door to the master bedroom was splintered, almost fully off its hinges.

Dinozzo came up behind them as they passed through the torn threshold, greeting them quietly, his face twisted to hold back an uneasy worry. Blood was liberally spread over everything, from the ceiling fan to the navy bedsheets and the photos McGee had set up of his mother and sister. Large sections of the obviously expensive Persian rug were soaked in it, enough blood for two people, maybe more. He sincerely hoped it didn't once belong to Abby or McGee. There were no bodies to be found.

Gibbs padded carefully over to the bathroom, Cox shadowing him in her unerring way. Dinozzo took the closet; the door had been punctured by several bullets. He let out a relieved huff when it turned out to be _sans_ body but sucked in a curse when he turned to find Jethro in a lump next to the bed, his fur mottled with blood and his teeth, still holding a chunk of human flesh, bared in a mad snarl. For a moment, Tony nursed a small spike of hope, but as Gibbs returned and kneeled down beside him, he shook his head. The dog was dead.

Gibbs picked up his phone again and made a call. "Palmer, let everyone know the place is clear. Whatever happened, they moved out fast. Have the police establish a perimeter, get Jonas and Linderman to interview the neighbors, call in the morgue bus, and get yourself and our gear up here asap."

There was a short silence, followed by a smattering of stuttering. _"Oh, god...is Abby...? I mean, are they...?"_

"Palmer, just do it!"

"_Okay. Alright, but Boss..."_

"What!"

"_I think I found something, I don't know. I'm not all that great with gadgets and...stuff..."_

"Spit it out, Jimmy."

"_Um, I think I found evidence of tampering with some electronics on the West side of the house."_

Gibbs paused and sent Dinozzo a significant gaze. Tony nodded. "Have Richards take a look at it and get your ass to the second floor."

When he snapped the phone shut, Dinozzo sighed and pulled out a set of gloves from his back pocket.

"Knew you'd need 'em?" Gibbs asked.

"Hoped I wouldn't." Stretching the latex and wiggling his fingers into it, he glanced sidelong at his former boss. "Hey, have you called Vance yet?"

Gibbs shook his head. "Not yet."

"SecNav?"

Tony received an annoyed glare as Gibbs stood and stepped into the hall to make the call. Dinozzo just tightened his jaw and got to work.

* * *

The world was black, unrelenting pain. His first instinct was to wretch, but his body was spasming so severely that even that was impossible. His shoulder was practically numb from the excruciating throbs spreading from his wound up through his neck and down through his arm and chest.

"...can't believe...shot...! Damn, Newman...have your ass on..."

"How many...he'd already killed..."

"Here, lift him...we're lucky...straight through. No, like this you..."

McGee screamed at the fresh jolt of fire that struck his veins like lightning. He'd just started to adjust to the darkness, but now the edges of his vision started to blur, the pain threatening to drag him back under. There was tape over his mouth, so he panted desperately through his nose.

"Aw, shit, Jones, give 'im the morphine, a'fore Buffy over 'ere suffocates on 'er own blubberin'."

Oh, god, Abby. Fighting the stiffness and the pain, he jerked to hoist himself up on his left elbow; he succeeded only in smacking his bleeding shoulder roughly against the hands that were dressing it. He let loose another choked moan through his gag. The nausea returned tenfold and his head swam, but he had seen Abby, her ghostly-white ruffled nightdress darkened with blood and tied with silver duct tape, squirming angrily next to several black-clad corpses. They were in a large, windowless van , and he could feel each jarring rock smash the tires as they sped down an unpaved road. Completely overcome with pain and devoid of any other option, McGee started a litany of mumble-hums that, in his mind and in his mouth at least, called the bastards who'd abducted them every foul name he could come up with.

He couldn't come up with much, but he meant each epithet with all his bloody heart.

The man with the deep, hoarse voice—the man who was currently finishing the dressing of his wound—released a longsuffering sigh. "Calm yourself, McGee. You 've lost a lot of blood."

Someone else, a tall man with sweat and grime shimmering across his cheek, leaned over his face and smiled maliciously. "I assure that, for the moment at least, you and your friend will not die."

* * *

Hey, everyone—thanks for all the wonderful reviews! _Please_ keep it up. You have no idea how encouraging it is to hear your ideas and to know that you're enjoying the story. You are all my absolute favorite people!

And: For some reason I didn't have anonymous reviews enabled. Silly me. That's fixed now.

What do you guys think? McAbby or not McAbby?

_mh_


	3. Chapter 3: Cortège

_Tony wondered if the world would ever stop moving._

_Two days ago, he'd said his final tearless farewell to the USS Ronald Reagan, but he had yet to regain his land feet and if he closed his eyes—which he liked to do every evening around eleven-thirty—he could still feel the sea roll beneath him. Three months of dull paperwork and lame poker, interrupted by only _two_ cases to which he was assigned, and all he wanted was to get back to work and for the earth beneath his feet to sit still. The doc had said he'd get his land legs back soon. He hoped soon was in the next two minutes._

_He was waiting by Cynthia's desk for Director Vance to invite him in. His orders to return stateside had come directly from this office. Tony wondered what that meant, wondered if he done his time or if he was being shipped all the way back to the BPD. Well, there's no crying in baseball. Jenny was gone, Ziva had been fired all the way back to the Dead Sea, he had a case of film neglect that would take a month of sleepless nights to fix—and all he could do was move on. _

_There were two things he'd learned on that ship, and one that he'd decided. He didn't particularly enjoy the quiet of the open sea, Navy ships didn't get Wi-Fi or cable TV, and he was never going to screw up again. _

_The director had Cynthia send him in._

"_Special Agent Dinozzo." Vance stood and offered his hand, a friendly grin on his face. _

_Confused, Tony responded with only "Director" and a returned handshake. The last time he'd been in this office, Vance had been doling out "off with his head"s like the Queen of Hearts. _

"_Sit, Tony." Tony did. "I bet you're wondering why I called you back in here."_

"_You could say that."_

_Vance pulled out one of his damn toothpicks and took a seat, indicating that Tony should do the same. He opened a drawer by his knee, unearthed a couple of files, and dropped them unceremoniously onto the desk. _

"_I never did intend to leave you out on that boat."_

_Tony paused. "Why not, sir? I deserved it."_

"_Yes, you did. But you're one of our top agents, regardless." He pulled out another file from the drawer. "I saw that Shepard tried to give you your own team about a year or so ago. Why didn't you take it?"_

"_Uh, I figured I didn't want to ruin a good thing, sir."_

"_Gibbs' team?"_

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Well, you're finally going to get what you didn't want."_

_Tony looked at the director, then at the files on the table, and then back again at Vance. His heart started beating faster and he ground his teeth in anticipation. Maybe he wasn't going to be the new "Special Agent BFE" after all. "What's that, sir?"_

_Vance pushed the two files on his desk towards Tony. "Special Agents Richards and Cox. Your new team."_

_Tony's jaw tightened and he took the folders off the desk. He just held them for a few seconds, trying to process what was happening. He sucked in a sudden deep breath._

"_I want McGee."_

_Vance chewed the toothpick silently. "And why is that? I thought you two didn't get along."_

"_He's the best, sir."_

"_The best detective or the best scientist?"_

"_Both."_

_The director huffed in amusement and shook his head. "Well, I won't argue with you on either count. But considering where you're coming from, you're lucky to have what I've given you. I've got two decent agents there. Don't waste them. Give it a few months, and we'll see about Tim McGee."_

_Tony just sat back and let loose a sigh that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. _

"_I'm not a bad guy, Dinozzo. I just believe in going by the book. If you keep your head on straight and respect the chains of evidence and command, we're going to get along just fine."_

_Tony paused. "I'm sure we will, sir."_

_He never did get McGee._

* * *

Palmer snapped a photo of a pile of old Bessie Smith LPs that had been boot-crushed on the rug, then moved on to study the curiously curved sword that had been thrown across the bed—the bed whose sheets were completely disheveled and covered in blood.

He shot a glance at Cox, her long brown hair tied back, her gloved hands gracefully dancing through their "bag-and-tag" routine, her yellowed _Nike_ running shoes—size eight-and-a-half—somehow skirting across the bloodied floor without even trying...okay, he was jealous. Put him in a basement full of dead people and tell him to tear them apart, and he was peachy keen. Hand him a gun and tell him he might have to shoot it, give him a camera and tell him to assess a crime scene, hell, put him in the same room as Gibbs and all of the sudden he had as much spine as a disembowled intestine.

Which, thankfully, they had yet to find this morning.

Dawn would come in about a quarter hour, and Jimmy tried to ease the tension that had wormed its way into his neck and shoulders. Focus on the positive. He'd kept it together, he'd found several clues that even a few months ago he might have missed, and neither McGee nor Abby had been found dead at the scene. He continued try to convince himself that they were going to find them and that they were going to be alive and well, but he knew the odds.

* * *

"So he called _you._"

"Yep."

Leon took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and stuffed it in his mouth, chewed it a bit, and surveyed the mess in the hallway. He shook his head. "When did it happen?"

"Picked up the phone at four-oh-seven AM. Got here at about oh-four-twenty-five. Palmer came upstairs about ten minutes after I did, guessed the blood was only about twenty minutes old."

"Puts the abduction at somewhere between oh-four-eight and oh-four-twenty."

"Yep."

"Missed 'em by only a few minutes."

"Yep."

The director paused again, chewed some more. "Any indication whether any of this blood belongs to our people?"

"Nope. Gotta wait for forensics."

"Did Palmer guess?"

Gibbs grunted. "Mentioned that it was enough blood to indicate that at least two people bled out. Add the blood from the dog, the blood from non-arterial injuries...there's about seven quarts of blood in there."

"So we can assume that a couple of the intruders were dispatched before our two were removed from the scene."

There was a pause. Neither Vance nor Gibbs wanted to vocalize what they feared: that either Abby or McGee had been dragged out of the building dead.

"Did any of the neighbors see anything?"

"Nope. Heard somewhere between seven and ten shots go off, but there was nothing to see."

"Must've used that unpaved alley in the back?"

"Yep."

"SecNav is pissed," Leon commented lightly.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Turns out he likes McGee's books."

Gibbs just continued his questioning stare, knowing there was more.

"McGee's also made quite a name for himself over in Cyber Crimes. Can do some stuff the government would like to keep a lid on."

Gibbs only shook his head. It figured that the kid would gather a fan club. "Abby's no small prize either, Leon."

"Nope." Vance sighed. "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to leave this case with you. I think McGee and Abby would appreciate that. I'm also aware that you've got only junior field agents on your team, so Dinozzo and his crew will be left on the case to help you. I'll get a CIA or FBI forensic specialist in to cover for Abby in the next few hours." He gave Gibbs a resolute look. "You let me know if you need anything. Our top priority is getting them back in one piece."

"Will do."

Vance walked away, but then turned around just before heading down the stairs. "Oh, and Jethro?"

"Yeah?"

Leon took the toothpick out of his mouth. "Good luck."

* * *

The big black guy with the gruff voice was the leader, and his name was Jones.

Abby decided she didn't like him at all. Not only did he wear too much aftershave for a criminal, but he was the one who'd shot McGee. He also left her alone with Newman.

When they'd arrived...wherever they'd arrived...Jones had ordered Newman—that was the guy with the bad Southern twang—to blindfold her and take her "inside." He was less than polite about it, thowing her out of the back of the van, forcing her to shuffle with bare feet through gravel, pushing her up the stairs to the second floor once they were through the door. He threw her into a chair, taped her ankles and her wrists to its legs, and hovered, gunning for homicide by halitosis. It was morning. The sounds of a nearby highway and excited birds filtered through the walls. They weren't enough to shut out McGee's muffled screams.

She squirmed uncomfortably. Not only did she need to use the powder room, but she was quickly starting to nurse an unexpected feeling of betrayal. How could duct tape, a masterpiece of invention with such staggering powers for good and right, be used for something so dastardly evil? If he were real, McGyver would be appalled.

Beyond Newman's nauseating breath, the room smelled like dust and old cat. The pained moans that had accompanied McGee into the house faded away, and she was left to face the psychotic bastard in relative silence. Cold fear slowly surged forward, crawling up her back and through her chest, at the sound of his breathing, at the incredibly putrid stench, right in front of her nose.

Finally, he spoke.

"Ya killed Marcus."

It was true. While Newman had carried him out of McGee's house alive, the sword-stricken villain had passed away within ten minutes of being laid out in the van. At the time, Newman had pulled out a knife, but Jones had stopped him. Abby wondered what he was going to do her now.

He ripped off her blindfold and walked to the other side of the room. She squinted at first, trying to get used to the sudden light after riding so long in the dark.

There were no windows, or, rather, the windows had been covered with wood paneling. A small bed with dingy sheets cowered in the corner, and two doors led to what she assumed were the rest of the house and a bathroom. Newman, however, was leaning over a large workbench and breathing roughly, obviously trying to contain some strong emotions.

He turned back, and she could see him clearly for the first time. He wasn't quite tall, he wasn't quite short, and he didn't look to be the brightest bulb of the bunch, but he certainly had "psycho" etched in every pocked pore of his face. Long strands of dirty blond hair hung in his eyes. She didn't like his eyes.

She began to try to rip the tape that held her hands to the chair, and Newman smiled.

"Them bindings ain't gonna be lettin' ya off soon." He pulled a switchblade up by his face so she could see it. Abby's eyes widened and she tugged harder.

Newman chuckled. "Jones-y said I could do which-not I wanted to ya, Sweet Cheeks, so long's I don't kill ya and ya can still talk when I'm done. But I can only do it once."

He placed the knife, blade flat, on her nose.

"What'cha think I'm gonna do, Abby?"

* * *

Dinozzo bit back a curse. There was almost nothing here that could tell them who their suspects were besides blood and more blood, and who knew if that would tell them anything in the end? Only two different sets of fingerprints had been found, and those were probably McGee's and Abby's. "C'mon Probie. Give me something here," he murmured. He squatted and sighed, surveying the patterns of blood on the bed.

"When did McGee get such a nice pad?" he asked as Gibbs entered the room.

"When he sold three best-selling novels in a row, Tommy."

Dinozzo just grunted and continued to study the mess, reaching down to lift up the silk sheets that had made their way to the floor. "When did he and Abby, uh...you know...start...?" He waved his free hand to elaborate.

"Who says they did?"

Just about to throw his ex-boss an annoyed glare, he stopped. Tangled in the sheets was something small, rectangular and solid. Quickly freeing it, he forgot his smart retort and lifted it up so Gibbs could see. It was black and miraculously untouched.

On a hunch, Tony turned it on and let loose a loud "Hah!"

"Anything derogatory I've ever said about McGee's McSmarts, I take back. The man is a genius."

* * *

I heart reviews! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. All your thoughts are much appreciated!

I got mixed opinions on the McAbby issue (my thanks to those who weighed in!), so I think I will ponder it some more and surprise you all one way or another. (Is it a surprise if I told you I'd surprise you?)

I am posting this so soon because I'm leaving this morning on a cross-country train ride. I'm not sure if I'll get WiFi anywhere along the way, so you might have to wait until Friday for a post. The good news is that I'll have plenty of alone time to work on this story in the meantime!

Cheers, everyone! _mh_


	4. Chapter 4: Death and the Maiden

_He wasn't sure whether to feel upset or triumphant. Had he been several years younger—had the last three years of his life not been spent in the bullpen at NCIS—he would have been thrilled. His own CCU team. Two kids right out of CalTech and MIT, both incredibly bright and eager for the glamour of classified government ops. McGee liked them well enough, but they weren't what he wanted. _

_He wanted to be back out there, solving crime. He wanted his old team back. And so, despite the satisfaction of a quick promotion, he was bitterly disappointed._

_When the director of the Cyber Crimes Unit pulled him into her office to commend him on two very difficult recent procedures, Tim had felt his hopes rise. Perhaps he'd finally paid his dues and they were sending him back over to HQ. He'd worked hard for this, slacking off not once and working each project to the bone, even once they'd been declared finished._

_Heck, he'd even identified and tracked down an elusive cyber terrorist who had hacked himself into the DoD mainframe._

_But _

_he'd obviously proven himself too well._

_Later that day, Abby picked him up to celebrate and beat him at pool. The House of the Seven Gables was where he'd met Janice, a skinhead mountain cycler with three impressively detailed tatts on his scalp, and Sanguine, a very skinny, very short woman with blackened lips, pasty skin and midnight blue hair down to her knees. He based the villains in his next book on them, and they bought him a beer._

* * *

"Richards, get the video off this, stat. Put it up on the monitor." Dinozzo threw the iPhone he'd found in McGee's room at the kid as they entered the bullpen. "Gibbs's team is gonna go over the neighbors' statements and check out McGee's and Abby's schedules over the last few days, so Cox, I want you to..."

"Check their phone records. On it boss." Anaar sat down quickly at her desk and turned on her computer.

"Uh, actually, I was going to have you give the CCU a call and ask them to send us reports on all the projects McGee's been tinkering with in the last six months. Buford's got a crush on you. Might be able to speed things up."

Cox looked thrown. She recovered quickly, but didn't look pleased as she picked up her phone to call the secretary to the Cyber Crime Unit's director. "O-kay."

"What'cha got Keith?"

The kid, his stringy blond hair covering his face, was just hooking something up to the phone. "Almost there, Boss."

"Almost isn't good enough. I need that footage into our system thirty minutes ago. Make it work."

Richards sped up a little, dropped the adapter he'd been holding, and then picked it up and shoved it into the front of his computer. "Done. Here you go."

The large flatscreen in front of Tony flicked on with a grainy flurry of shadows, the video jumping about as the filmer jostled the phone. The tinny sound of furious dog recorded on a bad mic came out of the speakers under the TV.

The entire bullpen went silent.

McGee was whispering loudly. "I mean it, Abby, stay in there." His voice sounded strained, but that might have been the poor quality of the video. There were some muffled hisses that could have been from Abby and then he spoke again.

"If whoever this is is packing heat, there's nothing you can do out here. Just do it, okay!"

Muffled voice.

"Okay."

Muffled voice again.

"Just...okay! Alright!"

The video was a mess of dim motion for a few seconds, but then it settled somewhat unsteadily on a door. It must have been the door to the bedroom.

And then the door flew open with a splintering thud. A bright flash accompanied a clap of sound that overwhelmed the speakers momentarily, and in the brief light Jethro could be seen lunging at a dark figure in the doorway. There was another flash, and another, one illuminating a man falling to the floor as a large dog ripped into his shoulder, and the second showing another dark figure. After that the phone must have fallen because the screen became a jumble of black and white flashes, and then was only darkness.

The sound, however, remained.

The entire NCIS floor listened, horrified, as crack after crack of pistol shot blew the speakers. Most of them knew McGee when he'd been assigned to Gibbs's team, and all of them knew Abby. They listened as Jethro's manic barks ended with a sick whine, and when McGee's scream cut in over the sounds of other dying men an uneasy rustle shook through the room.

And then Abby's yell, angry and afraid. A pained scuffle that was abruptly silenced.

"No, stop! Don't hurt her."

"Why should he not? She skewered Marcus."

Pause. "You...you shot...her dog."

There was a chuckle from a deep voice and then a long moment filled with the disturbing sounds of someone—probably Abby—trying to find air.

"You like this bitch, McGee? This is Abby Sciuto, right? We'll take her with us, too."

There were grunts as the remaining men helped the wounded out of the room, and then half a minute later when they came to carry away the dead. The entire ordeal took only seven minutes.

And then the room was silent.

Dinozzo was standing, his fists restlessly clenching and releasing and clenching again, his head down and jaw tightened. Gibbs was the only person in the room who could recognize the true depth of Tony's grief and anger by the color and warp of his face, but his eyes were trained stonily on the flatscreen.

* * *

Tim didn't want to open his eyes.

He knew what he would find when he did.

It would have been more logical for him to be afraid or angry, but a miserable and heavy guilt hovered over him instead. When he opened his eyes, everything that had happened the night before would be right there in front of him. Accusing him. Proving to him between each blink that he should have left well enough alone.

It was his fault that Abby was there.

"Mr. McGee. Please open your eyes." It was that rough voice. Jones. "We have business to discuss."

Tim was laid out on a bed, his ruined t-shirt was gone and his arm was in a sling. The man who had spoken with the funny English accent—who turned out to be balding and rather wiry—was nursing a blood infusion that had been tapped into the back of McGee's left hand. He wondered if they kept bags of blood lying around for kidnappings gone awry.

"I'm A-positive." That seemed like a stupid thing to say under the circumstances. His mouth was dry and his head felt funny; he supposed they finally gave him that morphine they'd been going on about. The throbbing in his shoulder felt oddly detached.

The man ignored him.

"Don't mind Turgin," Jones said lightly. "He's only upset about Ingram, Marcus and Lee. How you respond in the next few minutes will determine whether he gets to do something about it or not."

Ingram, Marcus and Lee must have been the men who'd died at his house, the corpses in the back of the van. Tim's brain finally kicked into gear.

"Why?"

"Why do I care about your response?"

"Why are we here?" His throat was scratchy.

The bed caved by Tim's hip when Jones sat on the edge, pulling a laptop from the bedside table. He pressed a few keys and then lifted the screen into Tim's view.

"You're here for this."

Tim blinked at the picture on the screen.

"Uh, that's a Peacekeeper. A nuclear warhead."

"Yes, it is."

"But I don't work with weapons systems. I'm a forensic scientist for NCIS."

"You're a hacker, actually."

"Well, technically, I..."

"You routinely hack into the secure websites of multiple governments, you track hackers in the act, and you create advanced security programs to prevent hacking."

"Uh, right. But I still don't see how..."

Jones hit another set of keys. A DOS terminal popped up, and a long series of lists and command prompts scrolled down it automatically. To most it would have been a unintelligible garble of white on black, but it made McGee's skin crawl.

"That's BMDO's system."

"Correct."

There was a pause as McGee tried to grasp the situation.

"I can't do it."

Jones sighed beside him and Turgin grunted. "You mean you won't do it."

"No, I mean I can't. The security on that system it's, it's...it's impenetrable. It's got at least twenty layers...I'd hit a dead end in half an hour, tops."

"You won't."

"Yes, I will." He took a breath. "And besides, I'm assuming you guys want something with that missile. To help you with that...it would be treason."

"But it would be a good idea on your part." Jones's voice had suddenly gone cold.

Tim swallowed, the dark mass of anxiety in his stomach sending veins of fear through his chest. He knew what was coming next, and he didn't want to hear it.

"Due to a stroke of luck, we have Abby Sciuto as well. That gives us some leverage. If I were you, I'd consider doing what we ask."

McGee tried to think quickly through the drugs. "Listen, I, uh...can we talk about this rationally? I mean, there's no reason for anyone else to get hurt..."

Turgin laughed and finally spoke, an aside to Jones. "He believes we care for the wellbeing of others!"

"Why are you doing this? Maybe we can find some other way to..."

"Do we look interested in other options?" Jones stood, and put the computer down, straightening his shirt, the muscle in his jaw twitching. He was not happy.

McGee tried again. "She's a genius with computers. Just as good as me, better even. You'd be...daaging... a valuable asset."

Jones leaned in towards him. "I have faith in your abilities. She is expendable."

Tim tried to sit up but Turgin pushed him back down. "Just...just wait. This...you don't want to do this."

"Your decision, Mr. McGee?"

"I...I can't..."

Jones indicated for Turgin to knock on the wall. "I asked Newman to wait, just for you."

Tim again tried to push up from the bed, to get free, and this time it took both men to hold him. The screaming coming from through the wall tore through every sensible thought that tried to coalesce until he was just blindly fighting the arms that held him back.

"Please...please just..."

Jones pressed. "You know what you need to do, Tim."

There were a few seconds of silence, and then a loud thump followed by a crash.

"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. But you have to let her go."

"Not an option. But we won't need to hurt her again unless you do something stupid," Jones answered.

McGee felt sick. He nodded, closing his eyes.

"You have two days to launch that missile into London."

* * *

Thanks for all the reviews! It really is nice to hear how you think the story is going, so send me a line—especially if you think there is something I could do better.

So, the McAbby clan has spoken. I'll weave that in here as we go. I think I figured out how to do it without being unrealistic. I'm actually really excited about it now!

For those who are chomping at the bit for Ziva...I hear you.

And...see you in a few days!


	5. Chapter 5: Et Ecce Terrae Motus

_It began innocently enough, with a panicked call from Abby earlier in the afternoon._

_"Abby? What's up?"_

_An indignant declaration. "McGee, they bailed on me! This is the most important day of my life, a day that should be happy and filled with friends, and, and, and I'm going to spend it at home, alone. With Bert, a carton of Strawberry Swirl—which is totally bad for me, by the way—and old reruns of the Adams Family. How could they?"_

_"What happened?" McGee sighed, leaning back from his computer desk. He'd been looking forward to the evening as well, having not seen Tony or Gibbs for, well, it must have been almost a year. Since they'd lost Jenny, actually. He was pretty sure they were both avoiding him._

_"A case. Some sailor found dead in an office supply closet at Langley. Apparently he was connected to someone higher up, and the director has half the department working on it."_

_"Oh."_

_"And he told me to take the night off anyway. Can you imagine how humiliating that is? I mean, he practically yelled it all the way from MTAC that he didn't need me."_

_"I'm sure he was just trying to be nice."_

_"I told him I might as well work, since he'd effectively cancelled my birthday, but he insisted. He's convinced that Hillman can take care of it all...which, in my opinion he certainly can't. So I'm going to be at home, feeling incapable and useless on top of everything else. I blame Vance if I turn to the dark side and start writing morbid poetry."_

_"Don't you already do that?"_

_"Only once, McGee. When I realized that Jethro loves you more than he loves me."_

_"Which is not true. He has a special whine just for you."_

_"Well, at least someone cares. I can't believe I'm going to spend my thirty-third birthday alone. That's almost a prime number, you know? It can only be made by multiplying two prime numbers. This is a very special day!"_

_"Um..." McGee thought fast, pulling up his browser and typing in a quick search. "Why don't I pick you up at eight anyway?"_

_Gregory's was a five-star restaurant that catered to those with good taste in food and Jazz, and had more recently seen a surge in the affluent members of the Swing dancing crowd. McGee had only been here once before, on a date that had unfortunately turned out unpromising within twenty minutes of their appetizer, but both he and Valerie had enjoyed themselves immensely when the dancing started. He'd remembered thinking about how much fun Abby would have._

_The Beantown Jives, a lively group of seven incredible women, were onstage tonight, laying out a quick 8-beat Lindy, the husky-voiced lead singing about Mack the Knife. McGee had decided to take this song off, and he leaned back in his chair as he watched a guy named Daniel twirl Abby around the floor. She had a brilliant smile on her face, and she was giving him as good as he was giving—they looked like a perfect extension of the music, hopping and twisting, twirling, dipping and swirling. They looked good. Abby looked good. The entire restaurant seemed to glitter in response to her delight, and McGee noticed that most of the spectators had their eyes on her just for the joy of watching someone dance with such happiness. McGee basked in a beam of pride—he'd done good._

_The Jives turned their energy down into a slow, sultry Blues, and Abby made her way back to the table, her face bright and her smile mischeivious. She took his hand and pulled him onto the floor._

_And now he was staring into her eyes, their bodies flush against one another. Moving, swaying, slowly turning, making love with their dance. She felt so perfect next to him, and he had a sudden urge to lean forward and kiss her—coupled with a sudden urge to put some distance between them._

_He'd learned to bury those reactions and enjoy Abby's friendship, and they were incredible friends, there was no doubt. He'd learned the lesson so well that the desires welling up in him were surprising and uncomfortable. He gulped a bit, twirled his partner, and was actually kind of glad that she snuggled up against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. Gazing into her eyes had simply been too deep, too...much. This...he could handle this. He hoped._

_The sensuous growl of the tenor sax drew to a final, sweetly tremulous note, but Abby held on for a moment longer. McGee didn't know what to do or say; it felt as though the air was frozen still as fragile crystal even though the band continued with a new piece._

_So he whispered softly in her ear, "Happy birthday, Abby."_

_At the end of the evening, after he'd driven her home, she asked him in. They were at the door before he realized that going inside would mean something very different than every other time they hung out at her place._

_"Uh, Abby, I think I should actually go."_

_She paused in unlocking the door, going still._

_"I've, uh, I've got a really early day tomorrow, and there's this important meeting with Roscoe and Burns, and..." It sounded lame, even though it was mostly true. It simply wasn't his real reason for leaving._

_Abby turned around, and the darkness made her eyes sparkle more. Again, he found himself lost in them, unable to break the connection. He felt like an idiot; he wanted to kiss her and he knew that would be a very, very bad idea._

_She made the decision for him and leaned forward. Their lips met and in that moment it just didn't seem like such a terrible thing. Without knowing how it happened, McGee found his hands on her waist and her neck, and he kissed her harder. It was very close to how he remembered it, but now that he knew her so much better he felt the joy of kissing her so much more. It wasn't until she broke the connection to trail smaller kisses down his jaw line and neck that he came back to himself._

_"Come inside, McGee," she breathed._

_And that did it. He pushed her away as firmly as he could without being ungentle. "Wait, Abby. Stop. I can't...we can't..." For some reason, he was breathing hard._

_Abby dropped her hands. She looked so beautiful in the night, the moon casting a light glow on her skin. "Why not?"_

_"It's just, well, we can't. I mean, we're not right for each other. You and I, we make great friends. But, this is...this wouldn't be right."_

_A small mischievious smile sneaked onto her face. "You're overthinking again, Timmy." She grabbed his hand and opened the door. "Come on."_

_McGee pulled himself free. "No, Abby. I'm sorry, I can't. I just...we're not...we're not looking for the same thing."_

_And now she just looked hurt. She didn't say anything. She just stepped over the threshold without him and looked back with silent anger._

_"I'm sorry," McGee whispered._

* * *

Keith sat quietly at his somewhat misshappen desk, pretending to go over Tim McGee's phone records, trying not to be obvious about the fact that he was watching the commotion unfurling on the other side of the office. His boss and Gibbs were tag-teaming that guy they'd sent over from the CIA, the one who was taking up Abby's slack until they found her. Uh, Grodin. Yeah, that was his name.

The guy was holding up remarkably well against their questions. Dinozzo and Gibbs were shooting them at him in an angry volley, as though he were the one who had assaulted their friends. And all Grodin could tell him was that there were five individuals in that room, besides Abby and McGee, and that all of the fingerprints found at the scene belonged to Abby and McGee. There wasn't even a viable print on Jethro's collar.

The two senior agents were understandably, in Keith's mind, upset that Grodin couldn't give them any more than that. It frustrated Keith, too. But Grodin seemed unperturbed by their outbursts and simply stated all the information he'd been able to grab from the evidence at the crime scene. Keith wished he could remain that stoic and self-assured under their demanding gazes.

Dinozzo had an annoying habit of comparing him to McGee, and Keith often felt resentful of the man's apparent genius. It wasn't hard to do when he heard "McGee could do this in ten minutes, Richards. Get it done," on a regular basis. Out at Cal Tech he was very close to the top of his class. He could have made a killing at software design or internet services, but he had decided to take this supposedly exciting military job in DC, a job where he could make a difference in the continuous fight against criminals and murderers. It was unfortunately turning out to be a somewhat degrading experience in which he was repeatedly undervalued by his boss.

Abby, though, had made it worthwhile. He didn't notice it at first, but with well placed comments and quick tutorials she had systematically trained him to see how his ability at creative problem solving could make the job worth it, even with constant comparison to a man whom he'd never met. She helped him understand that Dinozzo was only trying to encourage him to work up to standards that he knew Keith was capable of reaching.

Understanding Dinozzo's reasoning didn't keep Keith from feeling offended, though.

It made him feel conflicted about this entire case. On the one hand he felt resentful towards this McGee character, and on the other he desperately wanted to save Abby. It wasn't that he didn't want to save McGee—he certainly didn't want to leave him in the hands of those monsters—but he just wasn't comfortable with studying so closely the life of someone who had inadvertently made his professional life unimaginably irritating. The whole situtation upset him because he was generally a nice guy. He didn't like that he was feeling so ungenerous towards someone who could very likely be lying dead in a gutter about now.

But then again, if he could figure out how to find McGee, maybe he could come out from under his titanic shadow and start to be judged on his own merit. Maybe McGee could help him find his turning point.

The heated discussion on the other side of the office stopped abruptly as the elevator dinged and a squat, balding man in a tweed suit stepped out. Dinozzo and Gibbs looked at each other and visibly calmed themselves. Keith wondered if they had realized they were making an inappropriate scene.

The man strutted over to Gibbs and stuck out his hand with a confidence that could only come from being so short. Gibbs just looked at it.

"Roscoe Fredericks, Director of the Cyber Crimes Unit. If McGee has been abducted, we've got a serious national security issue on our hands."

* * *

"Oh, God, Abby." McGee stepped away from Turgin's grip and felt the floor ebb beneath his feet to the throbbing of his shoulder. Still, his lost equilibrium meant nothing next to the sobbing coming from the woman on the floor.

"McGee!" she half-cried, half-hiccuped, her head resting limply on the floor. She was still taped to the chair, but it had fallen over and trapped her hand beneath it, the budding bruise on her cheek indicating that she had gotten that way when Newman had struck her. Her hair was half-pulled from her pigtails, flying free in rude tangles, and her long white nightdress had been torn in several places. Other than that, she looked unharmed.

Except for the blood pooling around her feet.

Short and oozing cuts covered the bottom of her feet and toes—her right foot more than her left—deep scores that had come from a serrated blade. Still suffering from the effects of blood loss and pain, McGee tumbled to his knees next to her and tried to pull the tape from around her wrists with his left hand, his right arm still bound tight by bandages and the sling.

"Timmy, you're okay." Abby started crying in earnest now. "I thought you were dead."

Tim continued to try to pull the tape free but had no luck. "I know. But we're both here now. We're okay." He looked around for something to cut the binding and his eyes fell on Jones, who was stepping past Turgin with a switchblade. He tensed and he felt Abby do the same, but Jones bent over and slowly flipped Abby's chair onto its back, then slicing clean through each bunch of tape that held her arms and legs. When he was done he simply flipped the blade closed and exited the room, leaving Turgin behind.

Abby pulled her hands and arms free while McGee carefully helped her ease her legs to the floor. In the end, she was practically in his lap as he fell back onto the floor. He held her tightly and she did the same, and he didn't care that her grip was shooting pain through his shoulder and torso. He only cared that she was in his arms and she was alright.

Turgin crossed room and threw the bundle he was carrying on the dingy twin bed by the wall. "There are clothes and dressings for Abigail's wounds. I suggest you waste no time. Jones will be up to get you shortly."

Shortly happily turned out to be longer than Tim had feared. In half an hour Abby's feet were disinfected and wrapped in cotton, and they were both dressed in sweatpants and t-shirts that were too large for them. Lying in the bed, on top of the moldy sheets, with Abby's head snuggled into his chest, Tim reluctantely explained the situation.

When he was done, Abby was quiet for several minutes. When she spoke, her voice was even, but it lacked a warmth that he'd come accustomed to hearing from her. "I can't believe you agreed to help them, McGee."

The familiar guilt that had been haunting Tim through the last few hours increased. She was right of course. He shouldn't have told them he would do it. But he wasn't willing to accept the consequences of angering them.

"They'll kill you if I don't."

She was silent again for a moment, and then she sat up and looked down at him. He didn't think he'd ever seen her so...distant. Disappointed. "It doesn't matter. Millions of people are going to die if you do this. You can't." A tear started to roll down her already flushed cheek.

McGee felt his gut twist. He couldn't discuss this with her—what if Jones had someone listening? He couldn't tell her everything he was thinking, everything he was weighing. Everything he was willing to do to make sure she lived. All he could do was stick to the facts. "I can, and I am, Abby. Please," his throat caught, but he spoke through it, "you have to trust me."

Abby just looked at him then. Perhaps she understood what he was saying, or perhaps she just lacked the strength to argue with him after so much fear in so short a time. She laid her head back down and sighed.

McGee kissed her hair and rested his head back on the dusty pillow. And despite himself, despite the fact that he wanted to stay awake and make sure that nothing else happened to her—that she was safe—his weary body pulled him into sleep.

* * *

"You're not still tearin' up about them Red Coats, are ya, Jones?"

"Do I look like I'm crying, Newman?"

The Southerner gave a great bark of a laugh and looked around the basement, his eyes roaming over the piles of computers and electronics littering the tables and floors. "Nah, but ya've been mopin' about down 'ere, fixin' to run yer fist through a brick." Newman paused. "Yeh know this is the way of it. We settled this bone, boss."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"S'long's ya don' chicken out at the last minute or nothin'."

Jones shook his head. "It's the only way to discredit the United States government once and for all. We're going through with it."

"So why don' we get McGee down 'ere and get movin'?"

"Because we have just one more thing to do."

* * *

Hi, guys. I'm _so sorry_ this took so long. I was visiting my sister (and my cute baby niece!) _and_ my muse took a vacation. But I'm back. And even if there may sometimes be a little pause like this here and there, I promise to finish the story. I'll try to get out at least two chapters a week, but I can't promise anything except that I will keep going until it's done.

And, on a side note, I have nothing against London. From what I hear, it's an exceptionally wonderful place with wonderful people and a wonderful culture. I also happen to love America and think that whatever problems we may have, we're still mostly a reasonable, compassionate people who want to fix things without violence. I'm simply writing some characters who feel differently. In other words, I am most definitely not condoning what Jones's group is undertaking—either their motives or their actions.

So...hit that button! I love reviews! They make me feel so much more excited about writing. Thanks to all of you who have been giving me your feedback—I love reading your thoughts. I'm also willing to hear how I can make the story better, so please feel free to send suggestions.

Cheers, everyone! _mh_


	6. Chapter 6: Festin de l'araignée

"Oh, Tony, I can't believe they're doing this to you

"_Oh, Tony, I can't believe they're doing this to you!" Abby was hugging him, gripping his jacket tightly, getting her black eyeliner all over his shoulder. He just stood there, patting her back in awkward misery and gazing straight ahead at neither McGee nor Ducky, but at the city he was leaving._

_McGee stepped in. "Abby, remember you promised last night that you wouldn't make a scene if Tony let us come?"_

"_This isn't a scene, McGee. Handcuffing myself to his wrist and throwing the key into the water would be making a scene." She hugged Tony tighter. "This is a natural response to an unfair situation."_

_The group stood in an uncomfortable silence, a mournful vigil punctuated by Abby's sad sniffs and the circling cries of seagulls. The pause stretched, filled with the sounds of several families saying goodbye to their sons, daughters, husbands and wives. The occasional crash from the loading docks echoed through the boatyard. _

"_Where's Gibbs? And Ziva?" Abby . "How could they let you leave without saying goodbye?"_

"_Ziva did say she'd be here when we left last night," McGee responded, talking to Tony. "Want me to give her a call?"_

"_No." Tony's response was immediate. "She's probably packing and couldn't get away." _

"_Well I'm sure she..."_

"_No, Probie. Just drop it."_

_McGee's eyebrows drew in and Ducky sent Tony a searching look, but the man just shook his head and gave Abby's back a few more pats._

"_Alright, Abigail. I think it's time we let Anthony be on his way." Ducky softly squeezed Abby's shoulder and she turned to hug him instead. The good doctor let her and reached around to offer Tony his hand. "You know, this reminds me of that old sea shanty...oh, how does it go?_

" _Oh, yes. When the restless deep, she rocks my bed, and the wailing gusts sing o'er my head, I will dream of home, and know that home dreams of me."_

_Abby was sobbing again, and McGee had put an awkward arm around her shoulders. The Probe-meister seemed to be getting the raw end of the deal; he'd be the one left to figure out how to get Abby to stop crying. Tony felt a sudden sting of regret, wishing that he hadn't caused those tears in the first place._

"_I should just," he waved the hand that wasn't carrying his duffle at the ship, "go."_

_Ducky patted him on his back and McGee gave a feeble wave. _

* * *

"And you've got nothing?"

Gibbs threw a narrow eye at Roscoe, ignoring Vance's toothpick chewing on his right. The Cyber Crime Unit director's high, grating voice was twisting the muscles in his neck and shoulders to a quick migraine. The conference room was becoming unbearably small.

In a flat voice, he answered the man one last time. "No fingerprints. No useful facials pulled from the video. No leads in Abby or McGee's records. Nothing."

"Well, that's disappointing, Special Agent Gibbs, because in the last year-and-a-half McGee's had his hands in everything from the CIA mainframe to highly sensitive weapons systems. And if these bastards have got a gun to his head, we've got a serious breach."

Dinozzo spoke up, lifting his head from running over a list of phone numbers that Cox had handed him. "McGee's geeky, but he's not a coward, Fredericks."

"Maybe not, but he's not the only one who's been abducted, is he?"

The room quieted as Vance, Gibbs and Tony shifted uneasily.

"That might be an issue," Gibbs agreed.

Vance stood abruptly and took the toothpick from his mouth. "Roscoe, I want you and McGee's team to work closely with Gibbs and Dinozzo. Bring them over here to work from the NCIS bullpen. Agent Dinozzo, you can use Richards to keep on top of what CCU finds. Gibbs, your team will stay on the groundwork."

"Listen, Vance, I don't think moving a team over here is feasible..."

"But it _is_ what we're doing, Fredericks, so get them over here now. I want a list of all the sensitive programs McGee's touched since he went over to CCU and all the departments he's consulted for ASAP."

Gibbs bounced his fingertips on the table slowly as Vance turned to leave. He looked at Dinozzo, who was fidgeting ever more noticeably as the hours wore on. Frustration seemed to be seeping through the building like the bitter stench of varnish in his basement.

Just as the director reached the door however, Anaar Cox ran into the room, slamming it open without even a knock, her usually unruffled demeanor tossed aside as she held a phone to her chest.

"Boss, it's McGee's phone. I think it might be...them. They asked for someone in charge," she blurted.

Gibbs shared a shocked glance with Vance and then stood as Dinozzo snatched up the desktop phone and put a call through to Richards.

Vance took the phone.

"This is Director Vance of NCIS. Who am I speaking with?"

Silence as the speaker answered.

"How do we know you have them?...You'll have to forgive me if I'm not comfortable with trusting the word of a criminal...Now wait. Calm down. I can get you what you want, what do you want?...That's all?...I don't...We can't do... Damn it!"

Gibbs ground his teeth as Vance pulled the iPhone away from his ear and looked at the screen—the call was lost. Though he looked calm, Gibbs could see the set of anxiety in the director's jaw.

"Tell me you got something, Dinozzo!" Vance barked.

Tony muttered something into the receiver and then placed it back in its cradle. "Somewhere north, north-east of Baltimore. They hung up too soon to get any more than that."

"Unacceptable!" Roscoe, who had been pacing relatively quietly during the phone call, stepped forward and punched his hammy little fist on the table. "That was _plenty_ of time to track their location, their number _and _the Diet Coke they had for breakfast this morning. Of all the incompetent, ignorant agents..."

"Hey!" Tony cut him off loudly. "Richards had to jump through all kinds of hoops just to get _that_, Fredericks, so you can take your pompous, half-baked..."

"Enough!" Vance put the phone back into the evidence bag that Cox held out for him and turned to the three men in the room. "They want a ransom. Thursday morning, at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. No guns, no crowd control, only two agents. That's it."

"How much?" Roscoe asked.

"Five million." Vance paused. "Each."

The room itched with anxiety as each person, Cox included, wondered whether the government would be willing to cough up even that much.

Gibbs asked the question for the rest of them. "Are you gonna get us that money, Vance?"

The director scratched his ear and pulled out another toothpick. "Yes I am. In the meantime, we keep this investigation running. Gibbs, you send your team out to the harbor and do a ten-block sweep of the neighborhood. Dinozzo, your team will go ahead and work with Director Fredericks here to try and figure out _why_ Tim and Abby are being held. I doubt it's just for a few measly million."

* * *

McGee stretched his neck and took a quick sip of the water next to him. The basement was chilly and dim but dry; Jones had pulled together a wide array of computers and electrical equipment, just about anything Tim could ask for in a project of this magnitude. It turned out that Herbert Jones was an expert hacker—unfortunately expert enough to know when he needed to bring in help—and he eyed Tim's work from a terminal across the table. It would be difficult to do anything but what they'd brought him here to do.

Three hours into the project on a diet of pain pills, grilled cheese sandwiches and tap water—Tim was getting frustrated. His head ached, his eyes were dry and blurry, and he could only type with one hand. But he didn't have much choice. He'd committed to this, and he'd have to see it through. For Abby's sake.

"Stop daydreaming, Mr. McGee," Jones barked. "You've got forty-two hours left and you're not even through the first layer."

Tim huffed a sigh and tried to keep his voice pleasant, "I'm doing this one-handed and on morphine. BMDO's security setup is extremely sophisticated. So if this is going to get done, just, just let me do it my way."

"I've offered to type for you."

McGee eyed him coldly. "I don't know how you work. If you slip up, they'll figure out we're in the program, we'll have to stop, and then you'll...you'll..."

"Ms. Sciuto isn't in any danger as long as you cooperate. I've already promised that."

"Maybe if you brought her down here I could work faster."

Jones leaned over the table a little. "Listen, McGee. I know you set the security up for this system, so don't play games with me. Abigail is perfectly safe as long as you live up to your reputation. Do you really think Newman will hurt her, even after I've ordered him not to touch her?"

Tim didn't want to admit that Newman was exactly who he was afraid of. The mad boulder of a man didn't seem the type to abide by the rules, even Jones's rules. "No. But this will go a lot faster if she helps me."

Jones's eyes narrowed, and he answered flatly, "I've offered to help."

"Well I've worked with Abby before. I know I can trust her work." He tried not to fidget; Jones's constant scrutiny was making him nervous.

The man just stared at him for a moment and then picked up a hand radio. "Turgin, have Newman bring Ms. Sciuto down to the basement."

A beat of silence, and then Tim could hear the course sounds of Abby telling someone off bouncing down the stairs. "_Don't_ touch me you filthy, nefarious excuse for a human being. I can get down the stairs myself. Your mother would be so ashamed!..."

Tim watched Jones carefully as the sounds of the struggle made their way down to the basement, trying to figure out exactly _how_ these guys could have found out that his team had worked on the BMDO system. It wasn't information that was handed out to just _anyone_. A mole? But where? It could have been anyone from his CCU team on up to the officers who oversaw the systems operation. He shook his head. It didn't matter right now. Right now, there were bigger fish to fry.

Newman carried a squirming Abby into the room and angrily dropped her in the chair next to Tim's. Her elbow had successfully smashed the man's nose, and he glowered bloodily at her before turning to go up to the kitchen for a rag. Abby yelled at his retreating back, "Yeah, go running to your doctor friend, you overgrown banana slug!"

"Abby, stop making the dangerous man angry," McGee whispered under his breath.

She didn't bother with a quiet answer. "McGee, that man, he poked very deliberate, _painful_ holes in my feet. _And they hurt! _I'm not about to..."

He cut her off. "For my sake, try, okay?"

Abby's eyes bore into his, and the coolness she'd adopted a few hours before was still there. She was obviously still upset that he'd agreed to do this. He couldn't blame her. Not a bit.

"Remember when I asked you to trust me?"

She didn't say anything, but the sarcastic set of her jaw indicated that she did.

"Well, I need your help. I can't do this alone."

"You want me to help you nuke London?" Abby glanced at Jones and then back at Tim, obviously intending to be stubborn.

McGee sighed. "I want you to help me get you out of here. I want you to live, Abby—I want both of us to live." Tim turned his head and let his eyes bore into Jones's. "And it's obvious that the only way we're going to do that is if we give them what they want."

Abby drummed her fingers on the tabletop for a moment, pushing a keyboard a few inches away in order to do so, and then she looked up at Tim.

"Alright, I'll help."

Tim blinked. "You will?" It seemed too easy given the way she'd been balking.

"Yes, of course I will."

Jones spoke up with a dark reminder. "I'll be watching your work. I'll know if you're trying to pull something."

There was a pause as Abby stared at Jones and they both sized each other up.

"Don't worry," Abby answered sweetly. "I promise not to try anything hinky."

Her answer made Tim nervous, and he tried to nudge her under the table. He really hoped Abby didn't have anything up her sleeve—or, rather, knowing that she must, he hoped she wouldn't attempt anything too obvious. Jones had already proven that he knew his way around computers. And then some.

Rather than let the two of them continue to stare until London nuked _itself_, he took a deep breath and broke the stalemate. "Okay. I've got to make the system think that I'm logging on from within the Pentagon. I'm almost done with that, so let's just..."

* * *

Dinozzo pulled Cox and Richards towards the corner of their side of the bullpen, looking over his shoulder and eyeing that short Fredericks guy as the man barked tensely into his cell phone. Anaar gave Richards a pointed look meant to remind him to calm down—Keith tended to get a little high strung in these situations. He'd made fewer mistakes, seemed a little less jittery over the last few months, but Abby's situation had really shaken him up.

"Listen," Dinozzo started, talking at a half-whisper and quickly. "We've got some leads, and hopefully a way to get our people back, eventually, but the director wants us to work with that guy," he pointed at the little man, "to see if some of McGee's past work might be the real motive behind this."

"What about Abby's work?" Keith shot in.

"Palmer's been over that. She's never really been high-profile in our case work, and none of the guys that have been apprehended specifically because of her forensics have any way of pulling this off. But he's still looking, so..."

"So _we_ look into McGee," Anaar answered.

"Right." Tony glanced at Fredericks again. "Listen, the guy's a real pain in the ass, but he's bringing McGee's team in, and they might be able to..."

Dinozzo's phone rang, and he held up a finger to the two of them as he flipped it open. "Dinozzo."

Anaar saw her boss stiffen and his jaw tighten.

"I'm sorry, Director. I can't do that."

His voice was hard in a way that she had never really heard before.

"I have things to...Vance, listen, I just...fine. Alright. I'll go right now."

Dinozzo snapped the phone shut and stood for a moment with his eyes closed, tapping the phone against his leg. Keith shot Anaar a questioning glance and she shook her head imperceptibly. It wasn't their place to try and figure out what was going on in the often confusing brain of their boss. His eyes opened and he put the file he'd been carrying in Anaar's hands.

"Make sure Fredericks includes you in what he does once McGee's crew gets here, and help in any way you can. Cox, you're in charge of making sure they keep Richards in the loop. I've got to go pick someone up at the airport."

* * *

Hmmmm. I wonder who Tony's gone to pick up?... sarcastic grin What do you think the back story might be with Tony? What's his deal? I'm still wondering, myself, though I've got an idea.

Review! Yay, I like reviews. Thanks for all your reviews. Hit that button!

Cheers! _mh_


	7. Chapter 7: Girl with the Flaxen Hair

_As much as he hated to admit it, Tony Dinozzo wasn't the same man he'd been a year ago. He used to be a real Indiana Jones, a new bird for every adventure. Now, like the Desperado, he was feeling the pull towards domestication, and the thought of it made his spine shiver. Come on, he'd seen Gibb's life, trying and failing—again and again—to balance NCIS and domestication. Maybe the McNice-Guy could pull it off, but pedal-to-the-metal, permanent-bachelor Tony Dinozzo had no chance. Look at what happened with Jeanne. Complete disaster._

_He'd sure loved loving her while he'd had her, though._

_All of this swam through his head as he lay in bed next to the one woman who might understand. He ran a finger down her neck and onto her shoulder as she breathed the slow, deep sighs of sleep. Despite the fact that he was packing off to the lonely open sea in a few hours, a small grin snuck onto his face as he drifted off._

_In the morning, she was gone before he woke up. He didn't realize how much he'd wanted to see her when he opened his eyes until that moment. And now they would be oceans, worlds apart. She was right, of course. No letters, no goodbyes. It was easier that way._

_So he got up, put on his clothes, his sunglasses and an impassive face, and hit the road._

* * *

The atmosphere in the bullpen was tense. Fredericks and McGee's team had been given a private area in which to work, in consideration of the classified nature of McGee's exploits. But their makeshift office was connected to the main area by a door and a large glass window; it was obvious that the agents in that room were nervous and stuttering under Fredericks' loud complaining.

Keith bustled about that chaotic area, making sure that the imported computers and other hacker paraphenalia were conntected correctly to the NCIS network. It wasn't difficult, it just had to be done quickly and correctly. One of the guys in the room—Aeckers—smelled like he hadn't showered in three days—from the look of his stringy hair and greasy face, he probably hadn't—but the large bespeckled man had already given Keith three important pieces of information behind Fredericks' back. While it was evident that the director of the CCU was going to withhold any classified information he possibly could, the rest of the crew was going to give Keith everything they had and then some. They loved working with Tim McGee, and it showed.

"Aeckers, do you have that assignment list ready for Director Vance? I want you to get on the CIA personnel site right away and make sure there hasn't been a breach."

Aeckers gave a short "Yep" and handed a thick folder to his boss before sitting down at a terminal. Keith recognized Aeckers' route immediately—Dinozzo had asked him to hack into the same program several weeks prior. He had no intention of sharing that information with anyone in the room.

"Here, Richards," Fredericks gruffed. "Take this to Vance, with my regards. Then get your ass back here and report to Murdock." He meant the average-looking dusty brunette who, according to Aeckers, had turned into McGee's second-in-command when she had, with a split-second decision, figured out how to stop a hacker who was worming his way into the Navy's defense system. Fredericks turned to Murdock, who was talking quietly with the team's third member, Gretry—a diminutive waif of a girl with gleaming golden hair—"Call me if you need me, Jane. I've got some calls to make, so I might be a while."

Jane Murdock nodded. Keith wondered what she and Gretry were going to look into. What other sensitive government systems had Tim McGee tinkered with? He blinked, and instead of asking, he turned out the door and pumped his way up the stairs to the director's office, nodding at Anaar's questioning gaze as he went. It looked like Dinozzo was going to get the cooperation he had hoped for.

* * *

The moonlight sparkled off the tarmac as Ziva climbed down the ladder from her plane, glad that she'd remembered her jacket before rushing off to charter a flight to DC. She thanked the steward who handed over her small duffle and basked in the feel of fresh, humid air on her face. Her nose was dry from so many hours of processed air.

"Agent David."

She heard him before she saw him, and her heart dropped into her intestines. She knew she'd run into him eventually, but she'd expected to have at least another half hour to prepare. Perhaps a large, agent-filled bullpen to keep the awkwardness at bay.

Tony resettled his sunglasses in his coat's breast pocket, looking for all the world like a tough law-enforcer, unmoved by anything. "Welcome back to the United States."

His unfeeling demeanor left her without a response. She knew she might have to rebuild a few bridges when she returned, but she hadn't expected him to completely stoneball her. Stonewall.

What could she say? She'd missed him, more than she thought she would. He was like the bustling freedom of metro-DC that she didn't know she would miss until she left. "Hello, Tony."

He didn't answer, just opened the passenger door of his '67 convertable for her. She hesitated, but he continued to hold the door and flared his nose. The nose flare told her much.

Her bag was thrown in the back seat, and she tied her hair in a quick braid. When Tony got in, he put the key in, paused, but then started the car and drove them out of the airport, back towards NCIS.

It was a silent ride, so the familiar monuments and buildings competed only with her troubled thoughts and the sounds of twenty-four-hour traffic. To look at him, Tony hadn't changed much. Still chisled and GQ. But he had lost the flair and fun that had drawn her to him; perhaps he was only this way because she was with him. It hurt her to think so, but she hoped it was true. She wanted him to be happy.

To her relief, the ride to headquarters seemed shorter than she knew it was. The parking lot looked exactly as she'd left it, and she frowned. She felt stupid for reacting to such a mundane thing, but the sameness of it all made her uneasy, as though its rigidity was mocking the fact that _she_ had changed. It had been the same when she returned to Israel. Going home was often not as easy as one thought it should be.

"You didn't feel like calling?" he asked her abruptly. She froze with her hand on the convertable's door latch. She glanced at him, trying to gauge his sudden desire to...talk. He was staring straight ahead, not at her, not at anything. It was almost as though he hadn't said anything at all.

"You did not call me."

"I didn't have your number."

"You were away at sea."

"For three months." He took the keys from the ignition and turned to her. She knew that look. It was how he'd looked when Jeanne entered that elevator for the last time. It shocked her. "It's been a year-and-a-half, Ziva."

She knew her excuses were wafer thin, but in all honesty, she did not think that this was the best time to discuss her imperfections. Still, she had to roll with the punches. "What would we have said, Tony? What could we have said?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe something like 'How are you? How's the job? Are you happy?' For starters."

"I was fine, and the job was what it always was."

"Don't," he slammed his hand onto the steering wheel. "Don't mess with me, Ziva." He sighed and leaned back in the driver's seat. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have missed you?"

She narrowed her eyes. This was not like Tony. The Tony she knew would have shrugged this off by the time he'd returned from his duty on the USS Reagan. She had acted knowing that he would. It seemed she had been wrong.

She didn't know what to say, so she threw the questions back at him. "What is this about, Tony?"

And now he paused and tightened his jaw, obviously considering his answer carefully. "You just left. No goodbye. No 'see ya later.' We were _friends._"

"Yes," she answered softly. "Yes, we were. But what could we have said to each other, then? You were sent to float, and I was returning to serve my people. Two thousand miles is a very long distance."

"So you took the easy way out."

"I made it easier on both of us."

"Well, at least it worked out for you."

"That is not fair, Tony."

"Do you want to talk about fair?" He was angry now, tapping his fingers together and fighting to keep the red from his face. "Fair would have been letting me talk to you in the morning. Hearing me out. Maybe trying to figure out a way to take away those miles."

Her heart jumped from her abdomen to her throat. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Tony Dinozzo? The man who hoped to be a bachelor to his grave? "Do you mean that?" Her voice was shakier than she would have liked.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. "Well, we'll never know now, will we?"

With that, he opened his car door and stood. When he had gone a few steps towards the building, Ziva bit the bullet, hoping that something, anything, could be salvaged from this.

"How are you, Tony? Are you happy?"

He stopped in his tracks, obviously surprised by the questions. She took the opportunity to grab her bag and catch up. When she was next to him, she was relieved to see that he had simply waited for her, that he had not paused so long out of shock.

"Why are you here?" he asked as they made their way again.

Before she could come up with a safe answer, her mobile chimed. Looking at the caller ID, hopeful anxiety burst through her veins. "David," she answered.

The man on the other side spoke quickly and concisely. The call was over within seconds.

"We need to get inside," Ziva said. "I have information that will help Abby and McGee."

* * *

Hour fourteen.

If McGee had thought he was nursing a headache before, he was now doing full triage as a pick axe gently crushed its way through the base of his skull up to his eyeballs. He'd done long stretches in front of the computer before, of course, but none of them with a still-oozing shoulder and strong pain killers. He paused to stretch his free arm and glanced over at Abby, who was skillfully checking each of the new commands he entered into the BMDO security program and trying not to let her eyelids droop.

"I could really use a Caf-Pow right now," she murmered. Her voice sounded gravelly, as if her vocal cords were giving out from fatigue. He hoped it was just fatigue. Those cuts on her feet could easily take a turn for the worse, and he didn't know what options they'd have if either of them developed an infection. Did Turgin keep antibiotics on hand? Would Jones give them to Abby if she developed a fever? They should have changed their bandages hours ago; blood and water were seeping through to the top layers of gauze.

Abby cut off his worrying with an exasperated, "McGee!" She threw up her hands and turned to him, the dark circles under her eyes adding a degree of madness that, under different circumstances, he would have laughed at. Now, the exhaustion crushing her face made her look like the walking dead, and McGee gulped. If they weren't careful, she would be exactly that.

"How am I supposed to check your work when you're this sloppy? I mean," she turned back to her computer and huffed impatiently, "you've got all these extra lines that mean _nothing._ Zilch. How am I supposed to tell what you're doing with these?"

Tim's gut flew up to smother his heart and the basement bricks above him seemed to lower to just a foot above his head. What was she doing? Trying to get them both killed? There was nothing wrong with his programming.

"You obviously don't know what you're doing, Timmy. You're going to get us caught!"

Jones's eyes were narrowing dangerously in his direction. The man had been following every line he rewrote in the BMDO security program and hadn't found even a character out of place. Because there weren't any. McGee was doing exactly what he'd promised to do, even if it was in his own backwards way.

Why was she trying to make their captor—their exceptionally dangerous captor—suspicious?

"What do you mean?" he answered quickly, trying to fend off the questions that he knew Jones wanted to voice. "Everything's there. Everything works. We haven't been caught yet."

"McGee, if you keep going this direction, you're going to get caught before you can even get past the training site. Look at this line, here. _Someone_ is going to notice that and trace us within the hour."

It wasn't true. But it _seemed_ as though it could be true, to everyone but him, and that was enough for Jones. McGee started to panic.

"No-one will notice, Abby. This particular code is only run once a week."

"You _think._"

Jones was now cracking his nuckles and reading fitfully through the code on his screen. McGee, having no other choice, braced himself to ask her point-blank what she was up to. If she kept this up, Jones was going to think that he was messing with him, and she would end up dead. The man would be furious if he thought that McGee wasn't going to give him what he promised—a flattened London.

Oh.

McGee felt a little dumb, but no less concerned. That's what she wanted. To save London, no matter what it took. Even if it took their lives.

He was proud of her, and her bravery suddenly made her seem like an angel, a bleary-eyed, beautiful angel. But her lack of faith in him hurt, too. He'd repeatedly asked her to trust him, and she couldn't. If he was honest with himself, he knew why, but it was important—more important than he could express—that she did everything he told her to. He wanted her to live. And she could. She could walk out of here alive if they played everything right.

And now he had to figure out how to allay Jones's newfound ire.

"Abby, stop it. It's fine. If we finish up these next few lines, I can show you. No-one will know we were here." He made sure he was looking at her, into her eyes, sternly. "Reducing Jones's faith in me is not going to fix this problem."

She hit right back. "Well, maybe he _should_ be concerned about your abilities. If we get caught now, he'll never be able to pull this off."

_Shit, Abby. He's going to kill us anyway if you don't drop this._ He turned to Jones and tried to win back his trust. "I'm serious, this is fine." He typed a few more lines as he spoke, commands of different colors streamed from his fingers. "As soon as I hit 'run,' the new code will bypass all notifications to anyone and everything except the initiating program."

McGee finished and turned to Jones, hoping that the steel in the man's eyes was not a determination to scrub the project and kill them both right there. "I promise. Please let me show you."

"If Ms. Sciuto is right, McGee, she will die as soon as the authorities are notified." Jones's deep voice until that moment had been kind in a creepy, psychotic way. Now it was full of malice that had bubbled to the surface. "If she is wrong, she will have to watch you suffer."

McGee paused. He didn't want to suffer, either. But if it was him or Abby, it would have to be him. He just hoped that to "suffer," in this case, didn't mean to "die."

"I'm right," McGee answered softly and ran the program.

* * *

Hi, everyone! Well, it's terrible that it took me so long to update. But the good news is that my parents' back yard looks amazing. And, of course, that ZIVA IS HERE!!

Thanks, everyone, for reading. Very much appreciated. You know I love hearing from you, so let me know what you think. Cheers! _mh_


	8. Chapter 8: L'Histoire du Soldat

_Palmer swallowed hard and straightened his checkered tie, staring at his reflection in the men's room mirror as though it might tell him something deep and profound about himself, perhaps that he _was_ capable of handling this career change—and all that came with it. He remembered Dr. Mallard's words: "You are capable of anything you wish, young man. Never be afraid to change your mind." Well, he sure felt like he should change his mind _right now._ Before he went into that bullpen and made a fool of himself. What had he been thinking?_

_This morning, his first morning as an NCIS probational agent, Director Vance had told him he'd been assigned to Agent Gibbs. At that moment, his throat had constricted and his knees had locked, and he'd had to focus on not keeling over until _after_ he'd exited the director's office. _

_Gibbs was going to eat him alive._

_Director Sheppard had just died. Dinozzo, McGee and David had all just been shipped off to various places around the world. Gibbs was not a happy man, and Palmer was fresh meat for the slaughter._

_He'd put in a request for this transfer months ago. Hadn't told anyone but Dr. Mallard about it. He'd always held a secret wish to be out there, at the forefront of the investigations, solving crimes with everything he'd learned as an M.E. and everything he was going to learn on the job. And he knew he could do it. He'd scored high on all the aptitude tests, made it through the required firearms and handbook training, all while continuing on as Dr. Mallard's assistant with no one the wiser._

_And he'd been thrown to the wolves. Or the wolf. The big, scary Gibbs with teeth as long as Abby's shoe size and mental claws that were sure to catch him in a trap. Oh, how he wished he'd never even _thought_ of this idea._

_The bullpen was silent. The events of the past week had cast an anxious, grieving fog over the entire building. It was early, but agents were there, the constant clicking of keyboard keys underscoring a weighty sadness. No one talked, they all whispered. No one passed through the area of the room where the three reassigned agents had once sat._

_Gibbs was there, however, sipping some coffee—black, Palmer remembered—and reading through a file at his desk. _His_ file, most likely. He wondered who else would be assigned as part of the new team. Who would share his misery?_

_When Gibbs saw him, he stood and crooked a finger over his shoulder as he walked over to the elevator. "My office," he grunted._

_Palmer gulped audibly, physically rooted to the carpet for a moment. He really didn't want to go in there._

_Later in the day, as he sat at Dinozzo's old desk browsing over old reports and open cases, he sighed. Gibbs was right. He could do this, one day at a time. _

_

* * *

_

Hour Nineteen.

Abby watched McGee through tear-swollen eyelids, doing her best not to sob every time he shifted in his chair and let loose a strained breath. It was her fault he was hurting, her fault that Jones had used him to make a point. She understood now why McGee was going along with this. Poor McGee. Poor, poor Timmy. She couldn't do anything else that would put him under Newman's brutal hands. She was going to have to trust him.

She hoped beyond anything she'd ever hoped for that he had a plan. Or she had no doubt that London was...was going to be extinct within the next thirty hours. Those people deserved more than that. They all deserved to live and do wonderful things with their lives, not to be wiped out with only seconds' tragic warning.

Newman had used a baseball bat on Tim's knees, both of them. He'd swung that bat and showed his yellowed teeth in a feral, ecstatic grin, laughing louder as Timmy had cried out and she had screamed. Jones had allowed her to be there, and she found small comfort in the fact that _he_ hadn't grinned, had cursed as he held her back, tried to keep her from breaking his shin in her panic to get to McGee, to help him. As soon as Tim figured out a way to trick these hell-spawned cockroaches, she was going to make sure that everything they'd dished out was returned to them tenfold, threats, baseball bats and all.

Tim saw the tears that threatened to spill down her face, the way she was breathing hard to prevent a telltale attack of weaping, and reached under the table with his good arm. He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb across its back, never letting his eyes leave his terminal, but not really looking at it either.

She swallowed hard. Didn't he know that was only going to make her cry harder? Still, she squeezed his hand and allowed herself a small smile, for his sake. She was going to buy him one heck of a large teddy hog when they got out of this.

* * *

"Damn it! I can't find anything!" Gretry groused, causing Keith to jump. The room had been utterly silent for the past two hours. "Nothing. I'm beginning to think we've got it wrong. McGee's not messing with anything."

Murdock looked up from her work and frowned. "He's good, Di. Real good. He could rewrite CNN's codes so that they were playing South Park during the news, and no one would know he'd done it until Kenny died. So we keep on with this. We need to know if he's hacking."

"The good news is that he probably wants us to know he's hacking," Aeckers interjected.

"Which is why I think we're barking up the wrong damn tree," Gretry hit back.

"Well," Murdock said, "It's the only tree we've got in this room, so keep trying to catch the cat."

"Even if it's not there?"

"Even if it's not there."

"Right. Nab the non-existent kitty."

Keith's computer screen continued flashing through the coding that controlled the NCIS file server as they argued. After a moment, Richards noticed, through the large window in front of him, that the bullpen fell almost completely silent. Everyone stopped bustling in their tracks. It took a moment for the CCU team to notice the change.

"My Lord, that's Ziva David!" Murdock exclamed under her breath, raising herself slightly from her seat in alarm.

Keith's eyes widened, and he looked back out the window. So _this_ was Ziva David. The woman who, through the stories of so many agents, had risen to almost the status of legend over the past year...and whom his boss never, ever mentioned.

She wasn't tall, but she held herself with the kind of confidence that Anaar possessed, sure that she could handle any situation that was thrown at her. Long, dark hair and a lithe frame—with a set of sunglasses and an ear wig, she'd look exactly like the assassin they'd described to him. And sexy as hell.

He'd also been told she was a little obsessive. Which nixed any errant thoughts he might have had. Obsession and the knowledge of forty-two different ways to kill a person with a turnip weren't really on his "She's definitely hot" list. They were right up there with "Her canines are strong enough to rip the rubber off my tires."

He watched as David crossed the room, walking a little too properly, evidently aware of the change in atmosphere. Dinozzo followed behind her, just as stiff if not more bothered. Keith stood and gathered the files he'd been given. His boss didn't look like he was in the mood to wait for any news on the McGee/Sciuto case.

Ziva didn't have to wait to enter Vance's office; she was ushered in without preamble, and Tony followed close. He noticed Richards running after him, but didn't say anything when Cynthia barred his entry.

* * *

Palmer let loose a gut-weary sigh, careful not to let Gibbs see him. The Old Man, as Palmer, Linderman and Tyler called him in private, was thrusting his badge and gun back in his desk on his way down to badger the tech guy from the CIA. What was his name? Grodin. Right. Poor guy. Gibbs was intimidating on good days.

And today was _not_ a good day.

They'd found nothing in their midnight search of the downtown Baltimore area. Palmer's team, plus a contingent of the local BPD, equaled absolutely no luck. Nothing was suspicious, nothing was out of place. That in itself was odd for a busy, overcrowded downtown area, but it was unfortunately true. They found no evidence that could help them track down Tim and Abby.

They were grumpy.

As Linderman pulled out a list of phone numbers, rubbing his neck fitfully, and as Tyler sat down to type up her report on their most recent non-findings, Palmer pulled the cap off his head and plopped into his deskchair. He was tired, he was dirty, and he was worried. Abby was more than a beautiful foot, after all. She was his friend. And he really didn't want to have to help Dr. Mallard place her in her final coffin.

With morbid, unsettlingly humorous thoughts ambling between his ears, he pushed the little blue button that whirred his computer to life.

In their frustration and need of some legal form of caffeine, neither Gibbs, Palmer, Tyler nor Linderman noticed the abnormal quiet in the bullpen as anything out of the ordinary, given the tragic situation, nor the undercurrent of shocked whispers that laced through the floor.

* * *

"Ziva David," Vance greeted her with a small tooth-pick-studded grin, standing from his desk and offering his hand to shake. "It's good to see you back on this side of the Atlantic. I suppose you're..." He faded away mid-sentence with an odd look in his eye. "Pleasantries will wait. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I have information regarding the disappearance of Abby and McGee."

Her words were as clipped as her handshake, as burden-weary as Tony felt. He tapped his pantleg with his fingers in impatience. Couldn't she just get down to it? They had little over a day before the ransom pickup at the Inner Harbor, and Tony wanted to get to them _before_ that little transaction went down.

"While I'm glad you're here to share it," Vance answered, "why couldn't you simply call us with this information?"

"I didn't receive permission to brief you on the file until fifteen minutes ago."

Vance regarded her frankly for a minute, then took out his toothpick and sat down. "I assume you mean a Mossad file. What do you know?"

"They were abducted by an anarchic group we call Situation 35347." At Vance's questioning look she added, "As far as we know, they don't have a name for themselves. That is their Mossad designation."

"And how does the _Mossad_ have knowledge of a...terrorist...group working in America?" Tony asked, suddenly suspicious.

Ziva threw him an irritated glance and answered shortly, "The same reason we knew about McGee and Abby. The CIA spies on happenings in other countries. So does Mossad."

"While that doesn't make me entirely happy, Ziva," Vance cut in, frowning, "we're very interested to know everything you can tell us about this group."

"They are based in the Mojave Desert, at the edge of Arizona and California, and are not large. Their leader is a man who goes by the name of Herbert Jones, a fairly intelligent and dangerous anti-government personality. He has large dreams and the ability to carry them out. "

Ziva went on to tell them about the various small and not-so-small operations this group had run under the oblivious noses of the FBI, the CIA, and any other law enforcement agency that ignorantly ambled across their paths. It was beginning to look like Roscoe Fredericks was justified in his relentless paranoia—this was unfortunately much more serious than a simple ransom.

"The ultimate goal of Situation 35347 is to discredit the United States government and throw America into a forced anarchy. They wish to flush out what they believe is a system broken beyond repair."

Tony swallowed, feeling a bit woozy. Sure, the government had problems, but he had a feeling that Herbert Jones's solution was going to be a bit more dramatic than necessary. There was an uneasy silence when Ziva finished.

"So the ransom is a ploy," Vance finally stated. "A play for money, a play for time. Probably a play to keep us off the real trail. Damn it."

Tony and Vance shared a significant glance, and Tony sat down with a loud and troubled sigh. "Richards is waiting outside with that list. I guess we'll probably want to look at it now."

_

* * *

_

Hour twenty-three.

McGee was trying desperately not to sweat. One small change in one line, some extra letters sprinkled in odd places in the command code...nothing to change the actual commands, but enough to convince Jones that his quick and effective programming method was somewhat hinky.

Tim was fine with hinky. As long as Jones just thought he had an irritating personal coding style. Abby was certainly starting to twitch—with honest frustration this time.

The thing was, the program that received commands regarding missile preparation was named PALMER.

All he had to do was hope nobody—at least on this side of the terminal—caught on in time.

Palmer was busy kicking his foot on the inside back of his desk while waiting for his email to boot up. It never took as long as it was taking this morning, the little harddrive light on the front of his computer tower blinking on and off in fluttery patterns, the whirling blue circle "I'm thinking" icon continuing to whirl indefinitely. If this kept up any longer, he was going to have to go pull Richards or someone off "track McGee's mousesteps" duty to fix it, and he didn't want to do that. He put his head down on his desk. He just wanted his computer to work.

He was daydreaming about coffee and breakfast pastries when Gibbs zoomed back up from the basement, throwing his arms out in anger when he reached the bullpen, letting out a frustrated growl of a question. "Is there some reason no one thought to tell me that Agent David is here?"

The agents in the room hunkered down in their cubicles, hoping he wouldn't pounce on them. To their relief, he didn't. He just kept zooming past his desk, past Tyler, Linderman and Palmer, and up to Director Vance's office.

With wide eyes, Palmer watched him go, having to remind himself to breathe after a moment. Ziva was here? That was, that was... Well, that was good. That was really good, right? He heard the outer door to the director's office slam open and closed.

His email program dinged, pulling him from the shock that was numbing his already wrung-dry brain. Ah. There was the problem. A very, very large email. Probably spam. But how could spam get into his inbox? NCIS had a strict filter. He looked a bit more closely at the recipient.

With energy he hadn't thought he still possessed, Palmer reached for his phone, knocking it good and causing it to fly from his desk. Clumsily, he shot up, kicked his chair over, and gathered the phone and receiver from the floor, dialing even before he was standing fully up.

"Cynthia, yeah it's Palmer. I need you to put me through to the director's office _right now._"

* * *

Jones stood so quickly that his knees hit the bottom of the table, but he didn't feel that. Anger and, though he wouldn't admit it—fear—ran through him like a rabid hotdog, turning his insides in furious circles. McGee had...he'd...

"You slimy bastard!" He yelled. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?"

He walked around the table, screaming up the stairs for Turgin and Newman, forgetting about their radios entirely. These two were in such deep shit...

"Did you think I'd spare her, McGee? _Timmy?_ Do you think I'm an _idiot?"_

Tim McGee gave a startled yelp as Jones shoved him backwards and onto the floor in a heap. In two steps he had manhandled Abby Sciuto, frightened even beyond crying out, into a standing position, holding her up by the collar of her shirt.

"We'll see who the idiot is, won't we," he snarled.

* * *

Well, guys, I just realized that I royally screwed up. I forgot about this little thing called the passing of the sun into night. Whoops. Based on what's been going on, Tony would have left to pick up Ziva in the middle of the night (no sunglasses), would have had to wait a few hours for her, and would have brought her back to the office before the sun had risen. Whoops. I'll have to go back and fix that eventually. sigh

And, have I said this before? I'm not good at programming. I took a class in Java a few years ago...and got a C. I know just enough to know that I'm _really_ stringing a load of computer bull. It's more fun that way, though, right?

Thanks again for all your comments! I really do like them. Cheers! _mh_


End file.
